Thursday, June 22, 2006

Coal Black - bike

HEY STEVE!This youtube clip doesn't do the scene justice. Is there anyway you can make a clip at a larger frame rate? You can't really see all the overlapping action the way this looks now...Thanks!

This is my favorite kind of animation!

It only existed for a short time-between 1939 and 1942 or so.

It's round and bouncy, has tons of overlapping action and is just super lively. It's a way of moving that can only be done in drawn cartoons and makes animation a world unique to itself.It's just automatically fun just by itself. But then in context of great gags, direction and pacing, it's thrilling.

I wish real people could be so bouncy and floppy all the time-and there should always be a great jazz soundtrack happening behind you.

This, by the way is by Bob McKimson. He is not normally known for this kind of thing. His normal strengths are solid and powerful looking characters (as the Queen is here). His creation, Foghorn Leghorn epitomizes his style.

In 1942 this kind of animation is a bit of a throwback. Clampett loved to hang on to earlier cartoon styles and take them further than anyone else thought to. Gruesome Twosome is a caricatured throwback to characters from 1938.

Another nice example of this style is Elmer's walk in Elmer's Candid Camera - he's walking along, and his hat is bouncing up and down on his head. So fun!

Brad Caslor did a great cartoon in the 80s called "Get A Job" where he brought back Clampett's style of motion. Maybe it's on youtube...go look, it's wonderful!

I sure wish there was a way today to do stuff like this. Animation today seems to be ashamed to be animation, it just doesn't use its power to create magic anymore.

You would think with all the animated features and the ton of money they sink into them, that SOMEONE would want to revive and maybe even build on this great style of movement.

Boy, if anyone ever gave me the money to do full animation, you can bet you'll see this come back pretty fast.

I've been stuck in TV Land for 2 decades trying to figure out how to revive some semblance of techniques from the 40s, but having to use tricks to simulate what could be done easily and naturally back when you had your own animators sitting in the room next to you.

I'll tell you something-the prime time TV cartoons they make today that look like they cost 50 bucks to produce... They actual spend a fortune on them-waaaay more than Warner Bros. cartoons cost-even counting for inflation, and could easily afford to do all the animation in North America and do it fully too.

Snow White sings down the wellSW: I'm wishing...Echo: I'm whishing.SW: For the one I love, to find me...Echo: To find me.SW: TodaySuddenly Prince Chawmin shows up so fast and moves so wildly that the Disney Snow White can't keep up and she gets dizzy as he sings.PC: Snow White, yo right, fo I...has...Oh, wrong cartoon.

Since there are so few posts here and so many on the last subject, I thought I'd have a better chance of attracting your attention here even though I want to discuss Wally Man catch phrases. I've been shouting, "I'm tho fustwated!" ever since you first uploaded the picture and it is about as catchy as phrases come. I think you may really have something. You've given some terrific plots already, but since the characters probably have more to do with the long-term success of a show than the initial story ideas, this phrase alone has given me more hope for Wally than anything beside your previous work and obvious talent.

I love "politically incorrect" humour. Having said that, I am most certainly not racist.As an Australian, I personally find it hilarious when I watch a cartoon and see the most outrageous Australian stereotype, like in the Johnny Bravo cartoon A Boy And His Bird. However, I must say I've never suffered persecution from others due to my nationality, so I might not be in a position to say that black people don't find racial stereotypes offensive.I don't know what the big deal is over "blackface" gags in cartoons.Suppose a black character gets covered from head to toe in flour, then metamorphoses into Frank Sinatra and starts singing New York, New York. I reckon such a scene would be just as funny, but I bet there'd be hardly a peep from the politically correct brigade.A lot of people would claim that the people who made cartoons that feature racial caricatures were themselves racist, but I highly doubt it. Sure, racism was more prevalent in the '30s and '40s than it is now, but I think it's cynical to conclude that these people were intentionally trying to offend blacks, so the whites could laugh at them.In my opinion, we should be allowed to make fun of absolutely anything and anyone, including ourselves. In fact, there's an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants called Squirrel Jokes that illustrates my point very well. Has anyone seen it?

John, I've admired your work for so long, but I just found out about something I'm surprised you've never mentioned. Aparently someone has tried to do justice to a film called "The Thief and the Cobbler" that Richard Williams never was allowed to finish. I would imagine you would have lots to address about this between artists never truly finishing work, and business not helping art. Any insights? I've seen short bits from this pop up in odd places in the metasphere, but never seen anything close to a finished cut. You can bittorrent it if you search for the recobbled version of the thief and the cobbler.

I'm no artist, but I have so much respect for the work. Keep up the good fight, and thanks for all the preservation work.

>>David Germain said...Hey, John, you should definitely read this asshole's blogpost about Coal Black. I've already told him off along so many others. >:( <<

As soon as I saw what a terrible "wordsmith" he is, I had to stop slogging through his ignorant, unreadable crap and skip to the comments. Comments more intelligible than the blog?? Who'd have imagined it? **

**does not apply here. Wait. That came out wrong. You know what I mean.

Meanwhile, my kid graduated from fifth grade the other day and now he's decompressing, glued to the TV. Yesterday I walked by when Fairly Oddparents was on. I couldn't believe how completely offensive it was to all of my senses. Ugly, loud, bad colors, HORRIBLE "animation"--I felt like my head was going to explode. Jesus. No wonder he has ADD.

Its a shame about the animation industry in the US.. Besides California, John, where are the animation jobs? Im in Chicago and there is maybe two studios in town. Are you familiar with any midwest studios?

John & I were talking before about the racial subject in old cartoons. If this is a steriotype for black people, what about Elmer Fudd? Even white man makes steriotypes of himself! Does that make sense to anyone?

Great post, John!!! I'm ashamed too by all the craptoons out there.. *HWARRRFFF* In this day & age, it's the schools that AREN'T teaching us jack!!! *so ahamed*

I love the scene where it shows the exterior of the tent and you hear the dwarfs snoring. The animation of tent and everything around it is so lively and that's what makes it funny to me. Is that Rod Scribner’s work? Remember to try and find a nice clip of the Prince trying to revive snow white, that’s Rod at his absolute best. Words can't explain it, you have to watch it to be amazed.

They have these dollar dvds at Wal-Mart that have classic cartoons on them. I was rooting through them and saw one with a badly drawn Bugs Bunny on the front. As I scanned the cartoon list on the back of the dvd, I noticed the title All This and Rabbit Stew, one of the censored eleven cartoons. I bought it and popped it in the dvd player and sure enough that cartoon was on it. Maybe one day when I'm going through the dollar dvds I will find one that has Coal Black on it.

Doesn't a lot of modern animation go through many different hands during production? The wages of artist have been raised as well, and all this exporting has to raise prices. The price of cartoons have gone up and it seems as though the skill level has dropped. I know a lot of this goes into how art is taught and percieved today. It's hard to criticize modern cartoons and cartoonist when so many people are out to defend "style". If I were to say "Fairly Odd Parents looks ugly" a number of people would suggest I don't like the style. But bad drawing isn't a style nor is formula. One could argue that a cartoon has a style, or could point out that this is only the formula the show has chosen. The Simpsons started out more crude and open to ideas (even with stories) but now is in a "style" that is safe and will garner season after season. Having a style in TV animation is a formula. So it only makes sense that the TV executives would spend more money to keep a show under a formula to produce longer running shows and for artist to get use to this way of business.

A recent example of this is around Aardman, despite any feelings towards the studio there is a diverse amount of style under the directors. Wallace and Grommit gained success and Dreamworks took this style as a formula to produce the movie "Flushed Away" which looks like a Wallace and Grommit world. It's a safe bet to produce mediocre ideas and so studios put up more money for it.

That clip has a way better picture quality than the full ones on youtube. Post the whole cartoons in that quality!

I love that scene, in Coal Black everything is made of soft rubber. Also, I saw the scenes of Buckaroo Bugs and was blown away. I love the secondary action, like the guns streeeeeeeeeeeeeetching when they get pulled out and bouncing back in place, or Red Hot Ryder's nose!

I saw this bouncy rubber stuff in clips of Big House Blues... I'd pay to see it.

I would LOVE to see you do full animation! Hell, I'm amazed at what Spumco has done with limited TV animation! If I ever saw you do full animation the way Clampett did, but with your amazing drawing style and acting, I'd probably cream my shorts!

"All of the "black maid" voice acting in classic tom and jerry cartoons got dubbed over by a politically correct but still "black" voice."

if you have the spotlight collection volume 2 of the classic tom and jerry's they have restored all the original stuff, including the black maid and the original voice- her name was Lillian Randolph. They have a precautionary statement/introduction by Whoopi Goldberg at the beginning of the DVD menu as well... it's kind of interesting.

I love how you deleted a whole post just because people had contrasting viewpoints.

This blog is loaded with contrasting viewpoints. I would imagine it is tiring to have to wade through the impotence-fueled personal attacks to get to the good comments, so it's more productive to just delete the post and move on. You know: to the next post, which will invariably be chockful of the usual crybaby comments.

Take a lesson from most of the other people doing animation blogs like Mark Mayerson, Thad K, and Jenny Lerew who don't delete the comments that conflict with their own opinions.

Who gives a rat's ass what other people are doing with their animation blogs? And what might be the "lesson" they are offering?

You apparently have a parrot parade that's willing to take your opinion as gospel... But in the real world, what does that really mean?

Recently I was on an “Industry day” panel with the legendary Greg Duffel, one of the things he mentioned was in the forties, the average Warner's short was produced for about $60K US. He asked what the average Canadian animation TV half hour service budget was,now that flash has allowed full production in Canada. The panel all agreed it was currently between 100-150K Canadian. In 2006, it’s about $6000 a minute, for TV animation. I find it amazing that in the 40’s the budgets were 10 grand a minute. Using this inflation calculator: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ that’s almost 800 K or 130K a minute. Most big feature film budgets are upwards of a million bucks a minute. If you took a good TV crew, eliminated all the hanger-on-pocketfilling-slimeballs, I’m sure you could do a warner’s quality Feature for roughly 11 mil, which is the 130K inflated number X 90 minutes.

"By avoiding the problem, I meant taking down a whole post that John intentionally made to get a rise out of people... He couldn't handle that the majority of people disagreed with him."

How do you know that's why he took it down. The point of the post was to tell the regulars here that updates may be slow for a while, and talked shit about friz because it was funny. It was just a paragraph anyway. Not really worth keeping up.

There's still good fun animation out there, it's just that there's a ton more crap obscuring it. And most of the good stuff these days is comeing from outside America. Japan is loaded with crap as well, but there's a few gems if your willing to look. The French are doing some good stuff though, you can see it at Catsuka.com. Spmething good might be coming from Britain in the future as well.....

Hi John. Thanks for the compliment on my cartoon, Get A Job. I love Clampett's WB cartoons. I agree with everything you've been saying about his work. I've always been amazed that he hasn't been recognized as THE genius of Hollywood studio animation. You only have to look at the cartoons to recognize the beauty of the cartooning, the great shot compositions often with a truly delightful use of big and small characters, the bouncyness and plasticity of the animation, the daring ideas ... the sheer exuberance of his work. He somehow managed to get the very best work out of guys like Scribner and McKimson. His cartoons haven't dated the way a lot of other director's and studio's cartoons have. Clampett's cartoons are still outrageous, subversive, delightful and modern.

Get A Job was on YouTube briefly a few weeks ago but they yanked it for some reason. It's owned by the NFB.

"You don't know how much I want to bring that back. I love the early 30s cartoons too-especially Betty Boop, because they bounce up and down to the music all through the cartoon."

Those cartoons were definetly lively. Everyting would come to life.By the way John I am still laughing,for some reason,when you said all Friz wanted to make was dancing teapot cartoons,you should draw that and put it up on here on the blog.

"SUPREME HAS SPOKEN!"

And people could care else, quit whining. The post was nothing more then John saying he was going away and him laughing at people who defended Friz,including myself.There was no point of keeping it.

Speaking of pacing, there is this old old cartoon that I must have watched a kazillion times or more as a kid, It was on a videotape that had a couple of cartoons on it recorded from TV, I turned my parents place upside down to find it last time I was there but couldn't and I can't for the life of me remember whom it is by. I was hoping it would ring a bell to any of you and if someone could tell me more about it. I would love to see it again. Maybe my memory is scrambled (I was 5 or so when I saw it 24/7)

It had this crow/raven-like bird in it and I think it was walking behind a small black girl (not so sure about that one) and there was awesome music, it was slow jazzy, I can still hum it in my mind, slow ongoing and then all of a sudden there was a tiny pause and then the music went hop! and whenever the music went hop! the crow went hop! too. It was perfectly in tune with the music. Anyone know what the heck I am talking about? I don't think there was any dialogue in it.

If you guys don't have a clue there is no hope left I guess for finding out what it was. So here goes nothing!

I like today's cartoons. Little kids like them, so i'm ok with it (then again, they like LazyTown, and that sucks, but it's not a cartoon so it don't count) I never really could tell the difference between 'poorly animated' and 'quality' cartoons, until YOU pointed it out. I like a cartoon if it can make me LAUGH! does that mean I nessecarily practice from the style? nope, I just think its funny. I made a blog entry on this topic.

"It had this crow/raven-like bird in it and I think it was walking behind a small black girl (not so sure about that one) and there was awesome music, it was slow jazzy, I can still hum it in my mind, slow ongoing and then all of a sudden there was a tiny pause and then the music went hop! and whenever the music went hop! the crow went hop! too. It was perfectly in tune with the music. Anyone know what the heck I am talking about? I don't think there was any dialogue in it."

I think you are talking about the Chuck Jones Inki cartoons in the early 40's.If Ia mcorrect, teh black kid you are reffering to is Inki,a boy.

cable clair:You have just described Chuck Jones' Inky and the Mynah bird series. All done in pantomime, it was a Jonesian etude on pacing. The usual chasing and clobbering and high speed hijinks grind to a halt as the odd-shaped Mynah hops in a peculiar rhythm to Fingals' Cave Overerture. Jones made a few of these, and because of the little black kid with the big lips, it's a little hard to see.

cableclair said... "It had this crow/raven-like bird in it and I think it was walking behind a small black girl (not so sure about that one) and there was awesome music, it was slow jazzy, I can still hum it in my mind, slow ongoing and then all of a sudden there was a tiny pause and then the music went hop! and whenever the music went hop! the crow went hop! too."Cableclair:Those cartoons were a series starring Inki, a black male pigmy, and the Minah Bird. The music was from Mendelson. They were directed by Chuck Jones. Some of the titles are "Inki at the Circus","Inki and the Lion", and "Caveman Inki".

>> I like today's cartoons. Little kids like them, so i'm ok with it (then again, they like LazyTown, and that sucks, but it's not a cartoon so it don't count) <<

Since when are "little kids" your role models for animation standards?

>> I never really could tell the difference between 'poorly animated' and 'quality' cartoons, until YOU pointed it out. <<

So, basically what your saying is, you think all cartoons are created equal? Seriously, you can't discriminate between something good like "Beany & Cecil", and something shitty like "Dilbert: The Animated Series"?

>> I like a cartoon if it can make me LAUGH! does that mean I nessecarily practice from the style? nope, I just think its funny. I made a blog entry on this topic. <<

I'm sorry, but I find it hard to laugh at "cartoons" that are hard to look at or listen to!

JohnK said... I'll tell you something-the prime time TV cartoons they make today that look like they cost 50 bucks to produce... They actual spend a fortune on them-waaaay more than Warner Bros. cartoons cost-even counting for inflation, and could easily afford to do all the animation in North America and do it fully too.

Please elaborate on this... I have naturally assumed that what explains the Adult Swim lineup, with shows based around mocking 1970's Hanna Barbarisms and such, is that they are cheap and fast to produce. Can it really be that they spend as much on Harvey Birdman, or Aqua Team, or Sealab 2021 cost as much as APC?

Or maybe you are talking about something like Family Guy. I can sort of see that show sucking down a lot of dollars that are just not making it to the screen...

JohnK said... I'll tell you something-the prime time TV cartoons they make today that look like they cost 50 bucks to produce... They actual spend a fortune on them-waaaay more than Warner Bros. cartoons cost-even counting for inflation, and could easily afford to do all the animation in North America and do it fully too.

Hey John, i always thought that maybe the reason why you couldn't get anything new made was because of the cost. By that i mean whatever you would want made would cost too much. I assume that you would want painted backgrounds and title cards and stuff like that. Surely all this would cost more than just doing everything on the computer like those other shows.

I think i remember Bruce Timm talking about the painted title cards for Batman and saying that they had to stop doing them because they didn't have enough time or money to keep doing them.

Chuck Jones! Inki and the Minah Bird! Yes!!! Thank you guys so much for solving my mystery! (and sorry for mixing up the gender, hey I was 4 or 5 or so, I didn't think in gender back then haha)And ohhhh look! Now I know the name... more info!

http://www.toonopedia.com/inki.htm

Ahhhhh lots of stuff gets lost in post-correctness. I did production work on the Lomax Documentary and his dad visited and recorded Leadbelly in prison, we almost got our asses sued over for wanting to keep him saying "Thank you sir boss, thank you!" in the film. Did I say it was a documentary? hahahahah. It was that TIME, people, we don't have to be proud of it, but covering it all up won't make it any different or erase the past.

Hey, that lion from I and the M B is another great study in proportions! PS anyone else having problems getting their whole template from blogger? I know you can paste all the html back in but I never made a backup.. Aargh$#@%crappin blogger...

Hey Mr. K! I know you're not a fan of Japanese cartoons or comics, but did you know two characters in a manga called Shaman King where direct parodies of Ren and Stimpy?Check it:http://www.minstrelbook.net/tamao/conchiponchi.jpg

The Stimpy one is supposed to be a Tanuki, so just like in Japanese mythology he has giant testicles.

>>Hey John, i always thought that maybe the reason why you couldn't get anything new made was because of the cost.

Kiddie cartoons are generally a lot cheaper than prime time cartoons, so that's a factor in kid cartoons.

But Prime time catoons have way hifger budgets than anything I've ever had to spend and I still manage to get a lot more artwork and content and jokes jammed into mine.

The Ripping Friends had a ridiculously low budget and we had to use a really complicated production system between too many studios-including 1 in LA, 2 in Canada and one in Korea, and 2 networks each with their own different set of content standrads, so it was doomed from the start, but we did still manage here and there to get some funny stuff in.

No matter what the budget of any cartoon is there's no excuse to not at least have appealing character designs.

That's what totally amazes me the most today-how ugly so many cartoons are-especially the bigger budget ones.

I wonder sometimes if the things you say are too pure and obvious and close to raw truth for the unhip masses to understand or be comfortable with

The bouncy cartoons are so celebratory and joyous… why don’t people want to be celebratory and joyous?

What’s the point of art if it doesn’t put across some of the.. life… of life?

If that’s not too weird a sentence… I’m trying to explain something non-rational perhaps, even if it’s sensible.

I nearly responded a few days back when you did the post about 1938 and you explained why you stand up for Clampett and why he’s underrepresented in books written by dry intellectual critics.

It’s such a tragedy that artists like Clampett who function on such a sensual visceral level are ignored because all the quality of the work is in unexplainables, or stuff that’s so obvious and direct it doesn’t need interpreting. But that’s what makes it great… and the artists who do stay famous tend to be the ones who have a media friendly gimmick or any random personality factoid to latch onto… that’s such a dangerous and retarded way to filter culture.

Oh bugger I said ‘culture’. I’m pretentious. I’m just another pseudo intellectual square.

But keep up these posts John, I’m touched by the clarity of your vision.

Agggh I did it again. Forgive me for my silly words. Words are such a bind.

The Ripping Friends...was doomed from the start, but we did still manage here and there to get some funny stuff in.

You managed to get a LOT of funny stuff in. A lot of entertainment still survived the de-funnying process. I have the 2-disc complete set from Australia (PAL), and I can watch them over and over, and laugh again and again. Try that with Family Guy... The scene with Rip on the pain machine is awesome. Jimmy getting worked over by the kidnappers is great, too. I can only wonder how good the episodes COULD'VE been.

Trust me folks, John is being modest because he knows all that went wrong.

If you blinked, you missed this show when it aired, so buy it now. EVERYONE should have this set.

Somebody was talking about that new show, the CONAN the BARABARIAN parody -I can't remember the name of it -but having seen the pilot, I have to say they need to study Ripping Friends and they will better understand what kinds of opportunities they are missing in both action and character construction.

I loved Ripping Friends John!! My only complaint was that there wasn't enough animation, or at least out there crazy animation like I've seen you do in the past with ren and stimpy and other shows! There was ALOT of funny stuff in there though John!

I Loved the younger brother's Design the best(perhaps it was the popeye eyes that sold him to me), his design and He-mom's as well. They were just great!!

You'd be the one to do it, because most current animation barely animates the main characters. If you told them to start animating dancing objects in the background and stuff too, they'd probably flip out haha.

I have the 2-disc [Ripping Friends] complete set from Australia (PAL), and I can watch them over and over, and laugh again and again.

I agree!

The character designs are really funny in the Ripping Friends, especially the guest characters, villains and minor characters. There's a RIP-A-LONG segment with Red Riding Hood and a hilarious looking bear, and the RIP-A-LONG fat cat is really funny too. And don't forget the funny looking cows (that want to be eaten) in that episode with the villainous chicken stealing everyone's eggs and milk and steak....

The Ripping Friends would have been a great show, if only people could follow directions…

In John’s layout notes for the show he talks really clearly about how to work within a limited budget, and how to get the most out of your drawings. He even gives the layout guys permission to blow up the storyboards if the drawing is particularly good on a copier.

When the show was still on the air, one of the layout guys from a Canadian studio was bragging about his layout technique. Apparently he would draw his layouts half size then blow them up to full size on a copier. This is not a bad approach I guess, but when you compared his layout to the original Jim Smith storyboard, he had sucked all of the life out of the drawing. All of the emotion has been stripped from the characters face, not to mention the proportions of the character had lost all exaggeration.

Everything had been completely watered down, which seems especially ironic since he was going to blow up his drawing on a copier anyway, why not just blow up the amazing Jim Smith Storyboard instead?

I imagine that this type of thing occurred all of the time during the production of Ripping Friends, considering how spread out the work was.

Another big problem with the show was the backgrounds. I would love to see how much better each scene would read if shot against a textured piece of paper, or a splash painting of some sort. I know that the goal was to get away from some of that abstraction with this show, but I really think that the "Smurf Style" Backgrounds crushed a lot of the drawings.

The den scene in the Jean Poole episode was great, and The Manman episode is completely hysterical… For me, moments like these justified any shortcomings that the show had.

John what about doing a post that illustrates what happens when the crew does NOT follow directions. People don’t always realize how hard it is to be in charge, and I think that it would be a great lesson for future animators on why they need to trust the director.

Hey, John.What to you think of the drawing and animation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It looks like they used the Clapmett style for the Warner Bros. characters in that movie. Just curious what you think of that movie.

Hey John K, I have the rest of Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs on my computer if you want it. Being that it is part of the infamous "Censored 11," its a bit hard to find so the quality isn't great, but definatly far better than watching a youtube clip. Email me at homemadeclothing@gmail.com and I can tell you where to get it.

Examples that you give? All I am reading are treatsies on how Bob Clampett was God and anybody who has a negative thing to say about them is a psuedo-intellectual with no understanding of animation. Most of the cartoon blogs just copy and paste your thoughts and examples too which gets really tiresome.

How about you do a whole post on why you think Friz Freleng stunk? Back up your opinion with clips from Freleng shorts to show how 'generic' and 'sloppy' they are instead of making slams out of nowhere.

If you don't agree with anything John K says, then go bug someone else's blog! Most people here read his blog because we like his cartoons and Clampett's cartoons! If that's not your taste, then go start your own fucking blog and talk about how much Friz is god!

Also, how many cartoons have YOU directed, you supreme asshole?? Don't argue with someone who has been a director for more than 20 years and has had a hit TV show when you don't even have one goddamn thing to show for yourself! Your pompous opinions aren't worth a shit compared to John's! John can say whatever he damn well wants, and he will! Cartoons are his business! Not yours, you no-talent prick!

If you don't agree with anything John K says, then go bug someone else's blog! Most people here read his blog because we like his cartoons and Clampett's cartoons! If that's not your taste, then go start your own fucking blog and talk about how much Friz is god!

Also, how many cartoons have YOU directed, you supreme asshole?? Don't argue with someone who has been a director for more than 20 years and has had a hit TV show when you don't even have one goddamn thing to show for yourself! Your pompous opinions aren't worth a shit compared to John's! John can say whatever he damn well wants, and he will! Cartoons are his business! Not yours, you no-talent prick!

Supreme has choken!

You (I presume) have no experience in the animation biz, so your opinion doesn't matter either, based on your criteria.

>>>Catscratch seems to be a pretty fun show thats well animated. What is your take on it?

Is that Doug's show? I'm sorry but I haven't seen it.

I'm really old fashioned. I pretty much like the stuff from 1929-1957, with a few exceptions after that...like Roger Ramjet!

What is this Roger Ramjet show you and Jerry love? Is it funny? Is it like a Jay Ward cartoon or something?

I've never seen the Ripping Friends. Was it good? The wikipedia page has barely any info on it. How come it was on two networks? Which two? I remember it airing when I was a kid on Fox Kids Saturdays, but I wasn't allowed to watch it. Is it on DVD?

John, I agree with these guys, quit deleting posts. I wanna see it all!

TenNapal did a post about you on his blog... check it out! Catscratch isn't that good of a show, though.

Jorge Garrido said... >>>What is this Roger Ramjet show you and Jerry love? Is it funny? Is it like a Jay Ward cartoon or something?

I think BBC 2 used to show Roger Ramjet around the same time the original Ren and Stimpy was around. It's an older show than that though. From what I can remember I think it was like George of the Jungle, with a voice over guy (possibly the same voice over guy) narating the story. It was funny.

I have to say, after seeing the trailer for "The Thief and The Cobbler" on youtube, it really looks like it's animation for the sake of animation.It looks really pretty, but it doesn't look like it'd hold my attention for very long. As much as I like character design and animation, boring is boring.

I could understand that Rough Draft would not be cheap anymore, I mean that company animates almost every cartoon on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network right? Heres a question for ya. I know Bob Jaques animated the Ren & Stimpy cartoons "Onward & Upward", "Ren Seeks Help" and "Fire Dogs 2" but who animated the episodes "Naked Beach Frenzy", "Altruists" and "Stimpy's Pregnant"?

John K said: "You don't know how much I want to bring that back. I love the early 30s cartoons too-especially Betty Boop, because they bounce up and down to the music all through the cartoon."

Hey John,Have you seen the cartoon Betty Boop, M.D.? This would have to be one of the most fun-to-watch cartoons I have ever seen! And the music's great too, I love the bit where Bimbo sings Nobody's Sweetheart.

P.S. I would have to agree with Jorge Garrido, would you mind reconsidering deleting comments, please? Yes, I know it's your right (hell, you can delete mine if you like) and I'm sure it must be fun pressing the History Eraser Button when you come across a stupid and ignorant comment (like from a certain feline with delusions of grandeur... man, someone should tie his whiskers together and put mousetraps in his litterbox ;) but many of us like to read (and rebut) them, and besides it smacks of censorship.

I'm surprised by how glad it makes me that you're familiar enough with Doug TenNapel well enough to just refer to him as Doug. I've also not had a chance to see Catscratch (I only have network television), but I've certainly been curious about it. I guess that's the way it is with Mr. TenNapel's work. I adore Earthworm Jim and I've more recently discovered the oddly entertaining Sockbaby, but I've never gotten a chance to play The Neverhood. I must've studied the box evey time I saw it in stores, but I never ended up playing it.

And now I'm completely off-topic.

Anyway, if you'd like to see what Dougy Doug is doing these days, check out www.tennapel.comAll sorts of crazy conservative ranting from the guy made famous by a super-powered worm who was aided by Snott as he traversed lands with levels such as Buttville (home of Queen Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-filled, Malformed, Slug-for-a-Butt).

By the way, if anyone here is paying enough attention to notice, I am aware that Snott didn't appear until EWJ2 and that Buttville was a location only in the original game. This is merely for exagerated comedic effect.

do you think it would be at all possible to revive the short? everyone's trying to do animation for tv in 11 or 22 minute chunks...how about 7?! people keep bitching that no one goes to the movies anymore, why not get rid of that coke ad and put an animated short up with a decent budget to make it look nice?

I wondered - what do you think of the cartoon Ed, Edd and Eddy? It's on Cartoon Network and I think its probably the only decent cartoon left. Dan Antonucci makes it? Have you ever worked with that Dan guy? He made cartoons like Brothers Grunt and Lupo the Butcher. Ed, Edd and Eddy continues to be the last good traditional animated cartoon on CN. And Dan strives to preserve that too.

"and could easily afford to do all the animation in North America and do it fully too." So why don't they? If cartoons where animated in this country I might be able to have a career. But NOOOO! They are animated in China, Korea, or India because it's "cheaper". Wasn't the actuall animation for many Ren & Stimpys animated by an outsourced studio, somewhere in S.Korea? This is a VERY sore point for me because if animation was brought back to the homeland - I might actually have a shot at an animation job for once. Instead of some Korean animating it for peanuts. GRRRRR!!

"Brad Caslor did a great cartoon in the 80s called "Get A Job" where he brought back Clampett's style of motion. Maybe it's on youtube...go look, it's wonderful!"

Holy shit, I never thought I'd hear this cartoon mentioned.

I had this tape called "Great Manitoba Animation" back when I was a kid...(Manitoba being where I live. It's a Canadian province for you Americans). It was basically all the National Film Board cartoons out of Winnipeg.

It had "Get a Job", "The Big Snit", "The Cat came Back"...I loved 'em all.

If you've ever watched them, what do you think about Cordell Barker (Cat Came Back, Strange Invaders) and Richard Condie's (The Big Snit, The Apprentice) cartoons?

I love all the Clampett and Warner stuff, I really enjoy all your stuff, and I also like the Disney stuff as well. I get your point about the Dick Williams and Disney stuff, and as much as I like it and as technically amazing as it is, you have a good point with the entertainment value. Its just not there like it was in the short cartoons of the 40's and 50's. Not even close.

I keep watching these old movies, and these old cartoon directors had so much great material to pull from, and great actors to look at. The stantards were way off the charts compared to what they are now.

I would pop in the Warner discs before anything if I want to be entertained. And I love the drawings in those things because the guys like Scribner weren't afraid to push the hell out of things.

Anyways, I was thinking I would love to take a crack at a small anim of He Hog. I was wondering if you have a voice track or voice from an old movie. Or just some boards or an idea of something short with that char or any others to mess with.

I'm trying to get my 2D animation up to par, but I want to make sure I explore the whole spectrum so I really know the differences. The Warner stuff looks hard as hell to do. But I gotta take a crack at it, and I'm not sure where to start. And your ideas are about as fun and whacky as it gets.

I haven't posted before but I have to say I agree with every word in this entry, I also wish real people could look and move like this with the jazz soundtrack behind them. But that's not possible in real life. However it could be possible in animation again if more people'd think like you and me, so keep telling the message!

John, I agree 100% with what you say about today´s animation´s lack of magic. It seems like most of the new toons around (for example, "Johnny Test" and "My Gym Partner´s a Monkey") are stuck in the traditional UPA style, thus making the characters more geometrical than "human". I, personally, still prefer Tex Avery-ish humour, with tons of wild takes and gravity-defying hijinks... it´s a shame today´s cartoon writers keep treating the characters more like sitcom stars than like "wacky drawings", which is what they are in reality...